Hero image courtesy of Time Magazine.

Remember all the way back to New Years when the ball dropped and you were celebrating how you set intentions for the year. Inside of you feelings welled up inside of you about how you made it into 2020 and how grateful you were to certain things in your life. Set the same intentions for the reset of the year because it is a useful way to get through a time of testing for all of us. Many things happened this year: coronavirus, Black Lives Matter movement arose in response to police brutality, financial troubles, and many other things you had to overcome. Truth be told you are still here, living, breathing, and moving. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude and renew your look at the year 2020.

An allegory that best fits 2020 is the allegory of the first Kung Fu Panda movie (spoiler alert from plot summary). Po the main character is in an unlikely place and an unusual choice for the dragon warrior yet he is chosen to save China. Before he faces his adversary, he had to be trained by the master in karate, Shifu. Shifu originally tries to teach him like the others he’s trained, but he quickly identifies that he must train Po based on experience that relates to Po. However, the main lesson Po learns, that also relates to 2020, is that he must master inner peace before he conquers the enemy. He is an anxious guy with a spontaneous personality, yet he must take the things around him in by mastering inner peace. Our advice to you while you read sections about changing your mindset, refocusing your vision, and how to approach the rest of the year is that the only way to face the large problems of this year is by practicing inner peace.

Renew Your Mindset

Gratitude, Affirmations, and Intention Setting

The oft said phase says, we are what we think and what we think, we become. Therefore, it is crucial that you work on your mindset for the rest of the year to make it a great one for you. Some steps in the right direction are focusing on the present, practicing gratitude, affirming yourself (with your outer voice and inner voice), and set intentions for yourself.

These are some ways to kickstart these habits which will need to kick into overdrive to get through this tumultuous year:

• Create sustainable habits. It takes 21 days to create a habit, so use the quarantine and fragile time in the world to make space and time for what you want. If you want to spend more time with family and friends do that in a safe way. If you want to flush out your business idea, get to brainstorming. If you want to be happy, record the small moments of joy in your day and try to recreate that feeling.
• Journal things that you liked about your day and that you are grateful for. The process of writing often manifests these feelings within you. A great affirming and gratefulness exercise is rereading cards you get in the mail, texts, and dms that are positive thank you notes.
• Use meditations to help you cultivate a nicer inner and outer voice for yourself. One meditation that is very helpful is the I am Affirmation Meditation. 
• Cultivate a beautiful existence. This may look like reorganizing your room and decorating, curating your wardrobe full of vibrant and happy colors, or going to virtual exhibitions.
• Make daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly intentions that you want to make happen. Just follow through this time. Do not think of it as a resolution but an intention to build towards. One tip on how to follow through is by planning out the work to get there.

Fix Your Vision

Press Towards the Mark

#2020Vision trended in the beginning of this year because the metaphor of the numbers 20/20 is so powerful. Many cast this year aside because of how it treated them, but they forget their vision that they wanted to have. Great adversity often creates great clarity. This year we received personal clarity, institutional clarity, and social clarity. Keep your eyes wide open for the next moments of clarity in your life.

Also, do what works best for our vision: write the vision and make it plain. This phrase simply means set your intentions, map out how to get there (and yes there will be bumps on the way because this is 2020 afterall), and visualize that vision. Do what you can do at this time, set your eyes on what you want, begin manifesting, create vision boards if that is your preference, and step out on faith. Many shy away from risks at this volatile time, but risky moves are the only moves you can take in the midst of a pandemic and a slew of other issues.

Sometimes this can be as simple as writing down what you are looking forward to, your summer goals and how you are doing things to get there. It is important to activate productivity in approaching these goals, so seek peaceful productivity rather than anxious productivity. This means, when approaching your goals, set the mood, take breaks from social media, customize your feed to showcase affirmations.

‘I am the Walking Affirmation and Living Truth’

Recognize Your Resilience

You have made it this far by taking risks, stepping out on faith, engaging in your spiritual practices, and enacting the most radical outcome of all–self preservation. Remember that you may have made it by the skin of your teeth or any other metaphor for a small margin, you still made it and we are overjoyed that you are here. You made it through the pandemic, white supremacy, mental health challenges, financial binds, conflicts with family and friends, and many things. You are entering a new decade, an era, and a mindset that will launch all your dreams and visions into success. Choose joy and thrive.